Weather Journal: Winter Comes Early

Though the calendar still only says October, winter-like weather will get underway this weekend in Greater New York.

Possible record lows for Westchester County and southwest Connecticut are coming up Saturday morning, courtesy of some extremely cold and gusty north winds blowing into the tri-state all the way from northern Alaska. In New Haven, the temperature is expected to plummet to 31 degrees — three degrees colder than the previous coldest October 13th (34F in 1981). That kind of frigidity is similar to the average lows southern Connecticut experiences in the first week of December, almost two months from now. The first freeze of winter 2012-13 comes at least two weeks early for parts of the tri-state and may dip as far south as the northern Bronx.

In the city itself, kept toasty warm by the heat-trapping physical properties of concrete, temperatures should just barely make it below 40 — but that’s still Thanksgiving weather, not mid-October. Still, some frosty glimmers of ice on grass and leaves should appear across the northern suburbs of New York City each morning this weekend. The National Weather Service has issued an extensive freeze watch for much of northern New Jersey, all of the Hudson Valley, and all but extreme southwest Connecticut that should be upgraded to a freeze warning as the event gets closer in time. Long Island should avoid the coldest weather this time as the north winds will warm up as they pass over still toasty Long Island Sound.

Much farther north of the city, about 4 to 5 inches of snow (10-12 cm, for you metric fans) will fall north of the border in Quebec, though the heaviest accumulations should be quite far north of Montreal. No snow is expected in the tri-state this go-around, but the atmospheric pattern that’s currently in place certainly could allow for that possibility some time over the next two or three weeks.

Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Patty has formed near the Bahamas, but should be no threat to land. Patty marks the 16th named storm of a very active Atlantic hurricane season in 2012 and has officially topped the upper bounds of all major pre-season forecasts (in May, NOAA predicted there would be nine to 15 storms this season). Another storm (Rafael) could also form this weekend and has a better chance of affecting weather in Greater New York over the next 10 days or so.